Walking Men™

New York, New York

Site of the upcoming Four Seasons Hotel in NYC’s Downtown area, 99 Church Street, New York, New York, 10017

Also known as: Walking Men™

Administrator: Alliance for Downtown New York, Artea Projects

Date: 2010, 2010

Placement: public spaces

Collection: Alliance for Downtown New York

Artwork Type: wall pieces

Material: vinyl

Description: Walking Men 99™ is a site-specific Public Art Installation, surrounding the site of the upcoming Four Seasons Hotel in NYC's Downtown area, a photographic collage of 99 pedestrian traffic-light icons collected from around the world. The project was conceived as a collaborative effort of international photographers, each adding a piece to the collage through walking-com

Numerous traffic-light-characters represent the modern "Walking Men". Standardized yet diverse, they commonly show us the safe way of travel. The Walking Men Worldwide™ project explores various representations of this universally rendered 'man', and attempts to examine its inherent conundrum; why is it that while we all consider these icons to be typologically identical, they appear to add such a unique character to our urban identity?

The creative process involved in my work is an example for how an artist can gather a group of over thousands worldwide contributors by utilizing the internet as a platform, and motivate people to take part in the creation of a collage that unites them all on one canvas. In doing so, it creates a collaborative process that diminishes all political agenda, and becomes a "graphic Esperanto."

As each figure is printed in humane scale, this public art installation becomes visually attractive, inviting the public to engage and interact with the different icons, as they often pose and photograph with them. Aside from its playful nature, the project can provoke multiple levels of conversation; about how each country chooses to represent the "common man;" in simple pictograms and what that means, but also about the surprising versatility of the icons and the individual stories that each city carries along its streets; In Odense, Denmark, the silhouette of native Hans Christian Anderson decorates each traffic light, while the Ampelmännchen figure from Berlin marks an important part of the city's history, along with several other friendly female characters from Europe.

2013 CoD+A Awards

01/15/10 The New York Times, Art & Design - “Bringing Some Whimsy to Construction Sites” by Carol Vogel